“The studio is nothing more than an instrument of Capitalism.”

So says a merry band of tweed-wearing, intellectual communists to Capitol Studios’ most bankable star of the 1950’s, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney). Whitlock is staying at their Malibu Beach House after a rather tricky spot of being kidnapped from the set of the Studio’s new prestige pic-ture: HAIL, CAESAR! (A Tale of the Christ). Screening out-of-competition at Berlinale 2016, the Coen Brothers’ new comedy thriller follows in the footsteps of Wes Anderson’s 2014 comedy drama, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Isabel Coixet’s 2015 survival drama NOBODY WANTS THE NIGHT in being the opening film of the festival. Although Clooney plays the big hollywood movie star in the film, and is by far the biggest name in the cast in terms of box office bankability (to keep to the tone of that initial quote, which could have been ripped straight from the heart of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital), HAIL, CAESAR! is an ensemble piece, with a formidable array of actors whose narrative exploits are delved into by studio “fixer” Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin).

Searching for his missing film star, Mannix prowls through different sound stages in the studio lot. If Ralph Fiennes’ high-energy turn as record producer Harry Hawkes in Luca Guadagnino’s A BIGGER SPLASH wasn’t enough of a cinematic treat at the start of 2016 for you, then his casting as cravat-wearing, stiff-upper-lip director Laurence Laurentz is certainly an inspired choice by the Coens, resulting in one of the standout comedy scenes in a film of the last twenty years. Trying to direct his good-looking but not-so-suitable for the talkies, studio-endorsed lead actor Hobie Doyle (played by Alden Ehrenreich, who channels a young Leonardo DiCaprio or Dane DeHaan), all Larentz asks for is a “mirthless chuckle” but…”would that it were so simple.” To give away more in the review of this scene would be to spoil its witty, well-written comedic impact. It could well stand alone as one of the Coens’ funniest ten minutes on screen.

Another stage in the studio refuses to reveal Whitlock’s whereabouts, but does present another problem to fix in the form of a not-so-discreetly pregnant DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson) – a much-loved “innocent girl” lead actress of the era, who is starring in a fabulous technicolour water ballet feature. However, she has difficulties fitting into her mermaid costume, and even more difficulties recollecting whom the father of her child-to-be actually is. In contrast to the cold, other-worldly qualities of her character in Jonathan Glazer’s UNDER THE SKIN, Johansson appears in full New York accent-swagger, with the chutzpah of an NYC dame who can’t move from picture to picture without a sex scandal threatening to engulf her – and thus her employers.

Yes, it’s nostalgic, but heck, the whole film has a nostalgic glaze to developments…

Having already displayed his talent for contemporary dance in Steven Soderbergh’s MAGIC MIKE and Gregory Jacob’s follow-up MAGIC MIKE XXL, it’s Channing Tatum that tops the film in terms of physicality as Burt Gurney – an actor rehearsing a musical tap-dance number in another stage that Mannix walks in on. The Swinging Dinghy Boat Bar is the scene for Tatum to embrace his inner Gene Kelly (and you can’t but help of think of certain numbers from AN AMERICAN IN PARIS here, such is the highly-skilled choreography on show) when singing and dancing along to “We Ain’t Gonna See No More Dames.” It’s a scene that originally, Tatum informs the audience in the press conference at this year’s Berlinale, consisted of a knee-slide through some carefully placed bottles; and organically turned into six minutes of the sort of cinema that leaves you wishing for much, much more. Yes, it’s nostalgic, but heck, the whole film has a nostalgic glaze to developments.

Is life imitating art on the SPARTACUS-influenced set of Rome (and also perhaps, the Hollywood studio system) depicted here at the height of its powers? Some tend to think of that era of 1950s Hollywood as the apotheosis of the studio-system, before the introverted, isolationist McCarthyism and Red Scare that was soon to follow. But it’s hard to think of a studio as powerful as, say, the Walt Disney Company of today, busily hoovering up the rights to any and every franchise and rival company that it deems worthy of a takeover. Does it take a Christ-like figure to redeem the Roman characters of the film-within-a-film, HAIL, CAESAR! (A Tale of the Christ), only to persecute him with subsequent nailing to a wooden cross? The crucifixion metaphor is too strong to attach to a real-life writer like Dalton Trumbo, whose hounding by the House Un-American Activities Committee lead to a blacklisting by the industry in the 1950’s. But perhaps that redemptive story is being hinted at here by the Coens as a narrative device which allows for some very, very silly fun involving submarines, pet dogs and some counter-blackmailing on Mannix’s part to one of Tilda Swinton’s two characters in the film: identical twin sister, gossip columnistas Thora and Thessaly Thacker.

Referred to as the “Queen of Berlinale” in the press conference following the screening, Swinton described acting for the Coens as “even more fun on set than it is to watch on screen.” Yes, they may have trodden the subject matter of these cinematic boards before in 1991’s BARTON FINK, but somehow, after the bleak solemnity of INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS and faithful following of the path well-Western’ed in TRUE GRIT, the Coen Brothers have managed to produce their funniest film to date. The film’s sharp wit is perfect at masking the critiquing of the dominant economic model of the twentieth and twenty-first century, and the numerous necessary cover-ups that the Hollywood studio-system of the 1950’s had to see through in order to make it to “the future” that is referenced by the intellectual communist kidnappers of the film. It’s a future we know the studios of the past would win, through the prevalent power of the studios of the present. All Hail Joel and Ethan, cinematic Caesars of our time!

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